iPhone 5 - Solutions for battery draining issue

Posted by Marcel Key on 17th Feb 2014

This article is dedicated to Case Mate Store customers as appreciation for all your support since early this year.

TESTING ENVIRONMENT

- Telstra Network
- iPhone 5 64GB
- iPad 3
- 7km from Sydney CBD
- iPhone 5 is restored from iPhone 4

BACKGROUND AND ISSUES

Many people are having issues with iPhone5 battery is draining so quickly. There are lots of discussion where this may be caused by the phone itself, its default configuration otherwise as a result of restoring configuration from previous iPhone. The issue has also been confimed by Apple Representative.

My iPhone 5 has the same issue since I own it early last week. With very minimal use, the battery is down 5% per hour. This is really bad compared to my iPhone 4 that uses 2% battery per hour at most. In total, my iPhone 5 lasts only one day while my iPhone 4 lasts for 2 days.

Yesterday, I was in discussion with my colleague and we agreed to shut down notification system but the issue remains. We agreed that the signal may be the issue. Then I remembered the day before when I was underground and hardly getting any signals, the phone was getting really hot and the battery was down 20% per hour.

Last night 7km from CBD, I compared both telstra signal received from my iPad 3 and my iPhone 5. Surprisingly the signal on my iPhone 5 was only 3/5 while it was 5/5 on my iPad. Then I shutdown LTE on my iPhone 5 and the signal suddenly changed to 5/5. Wow!!! This might be the answer!. I know the fact that low signal is bad for battery as the phone uses lots of energy to keep searching for better signal hence the phone becomes very hot. I tested this since 6pm last night and after 19 hours (today at 2PM), my mobile phone is only down 23% i.e. 1.2% per hour. Glorious iPhone 5!!!

SUGGESTED SOLUTION 1 - POSTED NOVEMBER 2012

Go to Settings -> General -> Cellular -> Find Enable LTE and turn it OFF.
I think LTE should not be used unless you really have no wifi, you work at CBD and you really need fast internet.

Until LTE technology is getting more mature and perhaps until Telstra has more LTE coverage, I suggest you to disable LTE.

If for any reason you still need LTE, sign up a plan with OPTUS. Their LTE signal somehow performs better and more consistent in overall. However, Telstra is still performing better for wider 3G coverage particularly if you are inside a building or underground.